NUMB AND NUMBER

 

Hey Y'all... Lil Mike from EventMagic here, I just got back from a lil Beer & G-Loathing @ Sundance in Park City Utah. Headed to the icy cold Wasatch mountains ( home of Olympic Snowboarding etc.) to see what all the entertainment industry hubbub is about...

 

I have created a boatload of credit card debt to do some pretty silly things but also was inspired by the creative atmosphere and learned a bit about film from folks like director Ralph Clemente.

 

So much cinema is going on in sub zero temps it boggles the mind, and I really wish I woulda studied more before I got there as I missed some good flicks due to ignorance of showtimes etc. I was also surprised by how many Bay Area-yans were out & about.  

 

 

Speaking of Frisco, By Hook Or By Crook looked like a winner and woulda caught more than the bitchin' poster if only I had known this film was playing before the last night I was there. ( it features music by Shotwell & Carla Bozulich plus stars Stanya Kahn, Harriet Dodge of Bearded Lady fame and Lynn Flipper of Tribe 8). 

 

Wanna thank the Lost Film Fest crew for beatin' the odds and kicking it on the low budget tip. Also shout outs to Jon & Matt Phillips of Silverback for hooking me up w/ the righteous philly sound-bro Chris D of G-Love & Special Sauce at their sold out showcase at Harry O's...

 

 Since I really don't have an abundance of time to go into great detail, I'll let my pal Michael Dean , whose new doc that i am involved with was the reason for this foray in the first place, so i'll him tell his side of the story.

 

 

SUNDANCE/LOST FILM FEST SCENE REPORT 

 

 

January 16-20, 2002

 

 

By Michael W. Dean

 

 

Hey kitties. I'm sitting in our hotel room in Park City, Utah typing like a war correspondent using my Palm Pilot and its collapsible portable keyboard (full-sized keys, but it folds over twice to the size of a Palm). Little Mike, Peter Spicer and I are here to show a rough cut of our new DIY documentary ( D.I.Y. OR DIE: HOW TO SURVIVE AS AN INDEPENDENT ARTIST -- www.diyordie.org) at the Lost Film Festival, one of the smallest and definitely the most independent non-Sundance Festivals at Sundance. (There are ten or so other festivals that go on here the same week: Slamdance, Tromadance, No Dance, Slamdunk, Lap Dance, etc.)

 

		Main Street in Park City
	illegally promoting @ the fest to guys who already have their own films to illegally promote	I haven't scraped ice off a car in decades.
	click this hot tub photo to see a 30 second Real Video made by Lil Mike	lil mike - my insane creative consultant & snow angel

Most of these festivals repute to be "non-Sundance" or anti-Sundance or such...but basically, we're all just here, it seems, to try and grab a tiny sliver of a spotlight reflected off the glory of the big fest. I mean, if we didn't care about them, why come to fucking Utah and almost die in a blizzard in winter...why not go to Kansas City in July? The weather would be better, and hotel rooms would be easier to find.  (In fact, Little Mike and I are thinking of starting one called "Fogdance" in San Francisco. I just bought the domain name, Fogdance.com)

 

Sundance, if you don't know, is a huge independent movie festival started about fifteen years ago by Robert Redford (The Sundance Kid...get it?). It is an independent fest, and does show great films, but has been co-opted as a sort of Farm Team market for big-money Hollywood movie companies to come find the next big thing. A lot of films got "discovered" here, from Slingblade to Blair Witch...the money is snowballing down the streets of this little sleepy mountain town annually, and that ain't a bad thing. It is pretty shmoozie and funny though. I mean, why fly 700 miles to freeze and hustle people who live two miles from you? (I recognize a lot of people here, and I’m not talking about the celeb sightings we've had, like John Cusak, Jason Priestly and Buck Henry, but the people that I see on the street every day in Los Angeles. Oh...there’s that guy I always see at the Fish Taco stand....etc. )

 

 

a few of the Sundancing folks i didn't hang out with

So we get here, (wearing the cute matching faux leopard-fur ski jackets that Little Mike had made and embroidered with DIYOD.ORG over the vest. Peter Spicer had a matching hat) and find out that Pete (The main DP on the documentary), has had his luggage lost by Greyhound. (Little Mike...one of our interviewees and a big conceptual help on the doc, and I flew here and are flying back to Cali. Peter is flying back to PDX, but took a bus here...24 hours...from San Fran, to save a few bucks). Two days later, after a million calls, Greyhound has found his luggage. We drive in a blizzard, literally, to Salt Lake City (40 miles) to pick it up, and his 2000-dollar camera has been stolen. We file a claim, they say it will take up to thirty days to even begin to process, and that he may only get $250 back. This is fucked and probably wouldn't happen on a plane.

 

The main DIY lesson I am learning this week is that if you try to save too much money, you lose both money and effectiveness. A friend printed 1500 handbills for us for free at her work last month, and mailed them to us 3rd class at my request...they never arrived in time. We had to spend 80 dollars at a Kinkos here to duplicate that effort. I should have mailed her 6 bucks and had her sent them first class. We thought about staying with friends to save money on a hotel room, but I'll tell you this: in sub-degree weather, I am gonna do a much better job handing out flyers to strangers on the street (which is illegal in Park City...so it takes some judgment calls) on six hours of sleeping on a hotel bed, even if my buddy is sharing it with me, than I will after 2 hours of sleeping on a floor at a stranger's house in a room full of people trying to party. And the hotel has a hot tub. I just spent an hour in it. I'm all pink, mellow and feel like I'm on Valium. It’s delightful.

 

So...there's all these Hollywood phonies here and wannabe Hollywood phonies here...but the truth is, we talked to a lot of them on the street and many are very cool, funny and smart. We hand them a flyer, they hand us their flyer, and some actually seem to care about our film.

 

We are filming everything here (with Little Mike's camera...we're working on footage for the DVD that we plan on making for our film...sort of a "making of the making of" thingie...we did film a lot of little skits with other filmmakers...where we'd hand them our flyer and they’d crumple it up, etc. We filmed Pete trying to get his camera back, us in the hot tub, Little Mike rolling in the snow in his swimsuit, interviews with the "man on the street" etc. It's really fun...

 

Peter Spicer, my DP:
Me and lil Mike in the hotel:	my socks being stored in the safe upon request of my hotel roommates
Peter Spicier and Little Mike keeping me awake	Little Mike still ranting strong at 4 am.

 

 

Let's see...we stood in front of documentaries from the "real" fest and spammed them (surreptitiously handed them flyers for our thing, went inside and laid them amongst their flyers, etc.)....gave a copy of our film to Spike of the Spike and Mike Twisted Animation Festival (he was interested because his friend Jim Rose is in it)...

Spike and friends getting shmoozed during brunch

 

Met a guy from San Fran who is gonna let us use his drum & bass stuff as background music in the film ( http://www.terbolizard.com ) Met a really nice guy who wants to show our film at his college in Washington, met a distributor who wants a copy, have a pocket full of business cards, will sort them out tomorrow. The guys from “American Movie” were at our party too, but they spent about three hours locked in the owner’s office, doing God knows what.

 

We went to an amazing Lost Film Fest presentation at the University of Utah over in Salt Lake (most of their showings, including ours tomorrow, are in Park City, at an Internet cafe that holds about 50 people tops)...This was in a huge beautiful hall that looked like the place you would receive the Nobel Peace Prize. And you could see the Olympic stadium out the window....by the way, they are making all the students double up and finish the semester two months early to clear the dorms for better security at the Olympics).

 

The Lost Film Folk are cool. They travel around the country doing this at many film fests, and are even going to Cannes in France. (Our film is going with them).  They are the only people that I know doing something like this on these terms at this level, and it's pretty fucking groovie. They are a collective and run everything by group conscience. Kinda bizarre…picture punk rock mixed with Robert’s Rules of Order…... sort of what I call a Chaocracy, but they fucking get the job done.

 

another Michael, this one from the lost film fest collective

 

 After coming back from Salt Lake that night, we got tickets (from the Lost Film Fest folks) to a party for one of the other fests in Park City. At the top of a snowy mountain (pretty dicey drive) Slamdance Film Fest had rented out an old silvermine, and had an open-bar free for all with about 1500 people. It was like the hipster high school prom in Hell. We got there at 1 am, and it was nuts, fun and out of control. I went outside to use the cell phone though, and they wouldn't let me back in. I waited for 45 minutes in zero-degree weather, walking to stave off cold (the air here feels like icy knives in your lungs. And a Palm Pilot's character recognition gets pretty abstract). I spent awhile waiting for Pete and Mike to come out with the car keys.  It kinda sucked. I killed time calling people, and was so spun from the contact drunk of being around that, that I left a friend a message that I was at Tromadance. I was actually at a Slamdance Fest party. I forgot. I watched about 8 drunk alternajocks get thrown out for fighting as I was freezing.

 

Saw some great films...esp. Gigi (from 9 to 5) (at Lost Film Fest), "Straight outta Hunter's Point" by Kevin Epps (San Fran Doc by ex-gangster...amazing, insider footage that no one else would ever have been able to get...telling a moving real life story of life in SF' s most notorious housing project ... see it Feb 6 & 7 at Red Vic in SF)..."Dotcom: Hot Tubs, Pork Chops and Valium" http://www.sneakykings.com (mockumentary comedy..funny as hell...about a failed dot com's rise, fall,, rise, fall, fall, fall, etc.)....the urban drama called Bloody Crisis was great: http://www.bloodycrisis.com/

 

On Saturday, the last night of Sundance, our film showed to about 40 people in folding chairs, while across town, future film millionaires received awards. It might seem nuts to fly all that way and pay about a grand for a hotel and car to do that, but it was worth it in every way. We had a blast. We met cool folks, and saw great films. Spammed people with flyers to get the name out. Gave out lots of VHS copies of the film and some DVDs of the trailer to cool folks. And I talked to a bunch of people who saw it and got comments for the final edit. Sort of a punk rock focus group. And I got backrubs from a cute girl.

 

 

Josh Callaghan , editor of Straight Outta Hunter's Point giving me advice 

 

We went to some other non-Sundance showings and saw films in HUGE rooms that must have cost a fortune to rent, and we were the only people there. We didn’t pay a cent to show ours and feel we made out OK, despite the obstacles.

.

After the Lost Film Fest closed down Kevin Epps hung out with us and slept on our hotel floor the last night. We got up really early and drove to the airport. Extra security soldiers with M-1s....more cops......I’m waiting for buttprobes for all.

 

I am sitting at an empty information kiosk that says "Joint Task Force Military Reception Station for 2002 Winter Olympics”. So far, no one has asked me for information. I probably won't BS if they do, as airport security is frighteningly high. They are rubbing bags and your hands with a swab and then putting the swab in a portable gas chromatographer to sniff electronically for bomb stuff. Can you imagine if my band Bomb was still together and on tour? Could you imagine trying to take a big Anvil road case with "BOMB" stenciled on it through security? Hell...we could tour with Anthrax and have extra fun.....

 

Met a cool guy on the plane home who actually had a film in Sundance, His film is a short called Casablanca. (Really!) We talked, I gave him the last VHS of our film and we played with our Palm Pilots, beaming stuff.

-=-==------------------==-=-

 

 

back home:

 

I got back to L.A at 5 PM Sunday on 2 hours sleep. My skin is dry from the cold mountain air, but I’m happy. I just slept 4 hours. It’s 9 PM and I am getting up and starting my day.

 

Md.

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